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October 1st was the deadline for merchants to upgrade their POS systems to be EMV chip card-compatible. From now on, if a consumer uses an EMV card at an outdated terminal, the merchant will be liable for any fraudulent charges associated with the purchase.

Earlier this month COO of Abtek, Tami Cohorst was featured on WXYZ-TV Channel 7 in Detroit to discuss the current EMV chip card landscape in the United States. Learn why some consumers may not have received their chip cards yet and discover what this transition to EMV will do for our payment security as a country.

View the clip below!

EMV Chip Card Transition Deadline Is HereOur COO Tami Cohorst appeared on WXYZ-TV Channel 7 ahead of today’s EMV liability shift deadline to talk to Stephen Clark and JoAnne Purtan. Have questions about how to get your business chip card-ready? Call us at 248-623-4430 today!

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With the liability shift now less than a week away, merchants, especially smaller ones, are struggling to upgrade their terminals in time. COO of Abtek, Tami Cohorst was recently quoted on the topic in the Statesman Journal, sharing her expertise on EMV technology and how it will affect consumers. Here’s a look at what she had to say:

“The most important thing for the consumer to understand is that their card should be handled differently at the point of sale. Consumers will need to note that their card should be inserted into a reader rather – not swiped. If the business swipes their new card, then all of the security benefits of their EMV card are nonexistent,” Cohorst said.

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Tami Cohorst, Chief Operating Officer of Abtek, was recently featured on Website Magazine, a leading resource for all things digital. Find out what she has to say about CRMs for e-commerce businesses.

“Without favoring one CRM over another, retailers would do well to look for a solution that allows them to not only collect customer data, but also make notes: What kinds of purchases did the customer buy? What do you know about their demographic make-up? How frequently do they come in? This kind of information can be collected and can be used to help tailor any number of outreach strategies that lets the customer know how much you appreciate their business–even if it’s been a while since they’ve stopped in.”

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Tami Cohorst, our vice president, was recently featured on PaymentsSource, a global online resource for all things payment-related. Take a look at what she had to say about the future of mobile payments, according to data collected from social media:

Mobile payments are quickly becoming an integral part of consumers’ daily lives. In order for businesses to stay competitive, it’s important for them to stay on top of the trends in the industry.

Social media is an important way to accomplish that. It has emerged as a major influence on the mobile payment processing landscape. Payment service providers, financial institutions and merchants are monitoring online conversations and developing processes and technology based on what consumers want in terms of mobile payment experiences.

While it can be tempting to integrate “buy now” buttons into a business’s social media campaign, it’s not quite as simple as just “signing up.” There are a lot of logistical challenges that businesses must overcome before they’re able to successfully sell merchandise via social media platforms.

Click here to read more of what she had to say, including the most common challenges business may face as they work to implement this functionality.

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Tami Cohorst, Abtek’s Vice President, was recently featured on Digital Transactions, an online business publication focusing on trends in the electronic exchange of value.

You may have heard the term, “friendly fraud.” It’s no surprise, then, that there’s nothing friendly about it. And it’s quickly becoming a major problem for merchants across the globe.

Friendly fraud, also called friendly-fraud chargebacks or cyber-shoplifting, occurs when a customer makes a purchase online and then files a dispute with his or her credit card company, claiming that the charge was fraudulent or that the product was never delivered.

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Please join us Tuesday, June 30, 2015 at Milford Presbyterian Church to learn how the October 1st EMV compliance deadline will affect businesses and consumers. Hosted in partnership with the Huron Valley State Bank, the seminar will cover:

What is required of business owners to meet the compliance deadline

How the changes in EMV technology will affect consumers

The benefits of the new system

Tami Cohorst, VP of Abtek and known leader in the credit card processing world will lead the discussion. Tami’s in-depth EMV knowledge enables her to help merchants grow their businesses through education and new technology. Media outlets like Entrepreneur and MLive have turned to Tami to for her ability to educate business owners on the importance of updating their payment processing systems. She is always on the lookout for new technologies in an effort to stay ahead of the game when it comes to industry ideas, thoughts and products.

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Tami Cohorst, Abtek’s Vice President, was recently featured on Entrepreneur.com, a prominent online resource for business development news.

New and major credit card processing procedures are set to change the way we do business, thanks to the 2015 EMV Compliance Mandate.

The U.S. is the world’s final market to become EMV-compliant. Our adoption and accessibility to the technology will likely transform all industries that depend upon processing payments via credit cards.

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Our own Tami Cohorst, Vice President of Abtek, was recently featured on PaymentsSource.com, a leading resource for payments industry news and analysis.

With the card issuer mandate for EMV-ready merchants around the corner, are you prepared?

Globally, the U.S. is one of the last markets to implement this technology so one would think adoption of EMV is inevitable for consumers and merchants alike. Yet, with the mandate upon us, and EMV-ready equipment in place, consumers are still using “old” cards. Which begs the question: Do we need more education to merchants and awareness to consumers in the months leading up to the mandate?

Part of the education process begins with merchants. In order to successfully get buy-in from consumers, we need to look at how we can help merchants completely understand EMV technology.